


did glut himself again: a meal was bought with blood

by rainbowbadges (characterizer)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Magic, Blood and Violence, Gen, Hurt Merlin (Merlin), Hurt No Comfort, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Season/Series 04, non-traditional vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:15:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/characterizer/pseuds/rainbowbadges
Summary: The streets twist and twine together like a pile of snakes, and the dark feels endless. Surely somebody must be able to hear his boots slapping the cobblestone, the monster’s boots, Merlin’s heartbeat, anything at all. The only one who seems to notice, is the moon; ever silent, ever observant.----------Title taken from Darkness by Lord Byron
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	did glut himself again: a meal was bought with blood

**Author's Note:**

> hello! heed the tags. there's a lot of blood talk in this fic, because it's a vampire fic, and cannibalism (technically? someone is being eaten by a being who at least looks human). be careful. also hello to my twitter friends i hope yall like this, you've all been really encouraging.

The knights are long gone by the time Merlin finishes helping clean up after them in the tavern. That’s one unsavory thing about being a manservant (among many)— you’re always left behind to clean up someone else’s mess. Taverns are often understaffed and servants are often responsible for their wards; it’s expected of him to stay. He doesn’t mind so much. The tavern is warm and comfortable, and the night outside is cold and wet with late autumn. There’s very few people left hanging round outside of him and the barmaids, and the moon looks high from what Merlin can see through the wooden shutters over the windows. He smiles while sliding the rag back over the bartop to the woman behind it, who he thinks might actually own the place, and she simply snorts and takes the rag. “Run home now lad, the moon is too full tonight for boys like you to be out this late.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” He asks, just to give cheek, but also partly from his own curiosity. Merlin knows what things lurk out in the dark, almost too intimately, and has had no reason to think that anything has come within Camelot’s walls as of late. If something had, he would know. Wouldn’t he? 

She eyes him. “Just run home.” And with that he’s promptly shooed out of the tavern like some stray cat, and into the night. The moon is truly full. She hangs in the sky like a great, white eye; watching the kingdom, and more likely the world as well. The air is heavy and freezing, warm lights shine through the shutters on a few small windows, the scent of rain or fog sits on the back of his tongue, and a nocturnal bird whoots enthusiastically in the distance. Merlin can see his own breath as he walks down the dark cobblestone streets back to the castle proper. The barmaid’s warning would seem almost laughable, like an old wive’s tale meant to scare children— if not for the caution trickling down his spine.

He feels watched by the moon. Like she’ll reach out of the sky and grab him with deadly cold claws and rip him apart. Merlin shudders briefly before eyeing the shadows. They are deep to his admittedly poor night vision. The moonlight makes everything seem starkly outlined, harshly relieved. Something catches his ear while he walks past an alley; a quiet scuffle, barely audible, and a human voice groaning. As he squints into the darkness his eyes adjust. Hardly visible to him is two figures. One hunched over the other on the ground, with their back moving as if they’re leaning back onto their heels to tug something. Something between their teeth. There’s a giving of way, and a wet, fleshy noise. Merlin realizes too late what he’s seeing.

He’s watching someone be eaten. And they’re still alive. His knees go weak from the sudden wave of revulsion and grief and— he gasps through his mouth and can’t quite scream, but manages a strangled sound in the back of his throat. The hunched figure goes very, very still. A head lifts and turns and— they’re human. Christ, they’re fucking human. Distinctly, in outline, but there’s eye shine that flashes at him in predatory red. The figure— the monster rises up onto their legs, and rises, and rises. They’re tall, and they sway slightly on their feet as if drunk, and the person on the ground makes a weak noise of pain. Blood thunders in Merlin’s ears as the monster takes one step forward, and then another, coming towards him surely now. A blanket of buzzing, invasive cold settles over him. He can’t move. Just then for some inexplicable reason, the stench hits him. Iron on his tongue and he can smell the dry sourness of urine under that, terror and death in one. Rotten magic weaves its way under that like a slinking cat— he’d know the smell of a curse anywhere. 

Merlin breathes in through his mouth and jolts out of his frozen state, unthinkingly throwing out his arm and feeling magic flare in a warm rush through him, the cold blanket being driven out. The monster had done something, a thrall, to hold him in place. He tosses a haphazard wave of force but doesn’t even look to see if it hit or not. Footsteps stagger in the alleyway behind him but they don’t  _ stop  _ and Merlin just stumbles away and starts to run. He can’t see well in the night, especially not through his panic, and he doesn’t think he can fight this thing here. Something thrumming through his core tells him that it will kill him, more so than any of the dangers he’s faced as Arthur’s manservant, it  _ will kill him.  _

The streets twist and twine together like a pile of snakes, and the dark feels endless. He runs blindly ahead in the vaguest direction of the courtyard and then hopefully into the shelter of the castle. Footsteps slap the ground behind him, barely heard over the sound of his own desperate breathing as it fogs around his face. A thought drifts through the chaos of his racing mind. _Is nobody noticing that I’m being chased?_ Surely somebody must be able to hear his boots slapping the cobblestone, the monster’s boots, Merlin’s heartbeat, _anything_ at all. The only one who seems to notice, is the moon; ever silent, ever observant. Shadows and sharp streaks of moonlight disorient him as he takes sharp turns around any corner he can find to try and shake his pursuer. 

You never feel fast enough when you’re running for your life. Merlin scrambles to get away, throwing magic behind him once more when the footsteps get too close, but the monster doesn’t even seem dissuaded. He can’t scream through the claws that catch his jacket and then the flesh of his shoulder and throw him to the ground with terrifying ease. He turns onto his back only to have his elbows kicked out from under him. The monster-- the villain-- stands above him, outlined by the great eye of the full moon. Their eyes no longer flash while in the shadow of their face, but he can nearly make out their features now. Cold, and pale. Two shining blue eyes stare down at him, calculating. Merlin can’t tell if they’re going to make a meal out of him or not. His hands shake as he tries to summon his magic to defend him but the monster simply scoffs and kicks the side of his head firmly. 

He’s almost certain he blacks out on impact, because the next thing he processes is being dragged into the alleyway. The world swims around him and his head  _ hurts  _ horribly. He groans and tries to resist, kicking his feet feebly in an attempt at escape, but that doesn’t seem to have any effect other than an annoyed grunt from the monster. Rough cobblestone scrapes his back raw from where his tunic and jacket have lifted. Something wet leeches into the ass of his trousers, and all over his back; lukewarm and half congealed and clinging. His legs are dropped and more of the wet gets all over those too. It takes too long for his spinning brain to realize that it’s blood. He turns his head to the left and it gets in his hair and on his ear and on his face and he looks into the glassy, staring eyes of the monster’s first victim. They’ve died. 

Clawed fingers grab his face and he’s turned harshly to look straight into the face of the monster. They’ve got slate grey-blue eyes and short, brown hair that reminds Merlin entirely too much of Will. Luckily, however, it’s all set onto a long face with a sharp nose, entirely unlike Will’s rounded qualities. There’s blood on their chin and cheeks and even nose like a wolf after a feast. He can feel his own hot tears streaking through the sticky blood on his face. When the monster speaks to him they have a hard voice, feminine in pitch and yet grating on his ears. “My meal’s gone cold.” There’s that same calculating look in their eyes, assessing him.

Merlin feels cold. From the chilling blood, from the corpse just inches away, from the fog heavy air, from the monster considering what to do with him. He’s cold, and he’s  _ scared _ . The only parts of him that feel warm are where the monster’s hot fingers hold his face, and where his tears cut down his cheeks. He hiccups on his next breath and tries to move his face out of their grip. They look amused, if anything, and have seemed to come to a conclusion. Hair tickles his brow as they lean forward to nose just under his ear, as if smelling.

The fingers on his face shift and suddenly a searing palm clutching his neckerchief is pressed over his mouth. His legs kick in panic and then  _ teeth  _ are sunken into his shoulder and  _ tearing _ — a wave of heat flushes through him before he’s suddenly cold with agony. His screaming doesn’t make it past the hand over his mouth. Raw,  _ dirty  _ magic sweeps into his blood and he can feel every part of it. Merlin’s heartbeat roars in his ears and he can feel his body trying to get away; splashing in the blood and gore on the cobblestones beneath him. The teeth are gone. He rolls onto his side and vomits and claws at his skin with blunt fingernails because  _ he can feel the curse under his skin _ . It boils and he can feel it in his heart, in his brain. Distantly, he recognizes the monster hacking and spitting in disgust. “ _ Nasty fucking warlock— _ ” is all he catches before he’s heaving again. 

The monster leaves, fading into the night like they were never there. Merlin is left, completely alone except for the corpse beside him, to feel his body turn itself inside out fighting the curse for hours. And it loses. 

Somehow, it is not even light out by the time Merlin manages to crawl to his feet. He passes no one on the street, thankfully as he doesn’t know how he’d be able to explain the fact that he is absolutely caked in blood. Just thinking about it has his mouth filling with drool as he struggles not to throw up yet again— even though nothing but bile would come up at this point. He burps nauseously and sways while struggling to coordinate his steps with his swimming vision. The castle looms against the predawn sky as a massive black shadow, bigger than a mountain. The darkness cloaks him as he enters the back servantry passages and avoids the courtyard completely, coming into the castle through a disguised pantry, and then into the winding halls proper. Shadows ripple and Merlin blinks, quite unsure how he’s reached the bottom of the winding staircase up to Arthur’s rooms.

He only has mere hours to wash himself, and Arthur absolutely noticed his absence last night while preparing for bed. It could be excused as Merlin staying behind to get rowdy with lingering peasants, but any idea of a cover story is hard for his addled mind to grasp properly. His thoughts feel like they’re slipping out through his ears; greased in fat and impossible to hold onto for more than a second. The stairs are difficult to manage and seem to be made of possible angles that shift, however he somehow manages them and has Arthur’s door in his sights, propped up against the hallway wall with one hand. Wood grain soon under his sensitive fingertips. He leans his forehead on the door before shuddering his way through some exhausted breaths, trying to keep himself quiet in case any guards think to come down the hall this late in the night. 

Merlin takes in another deep breath and then wraps his fingers around the door handle, pushing it open as silently as he can.

**Author's Note:**

> the first chapter is very short, but i've been working on it for a while so i wanted to get it out there! my updates on this will probably be slow, so please be patient with me.
> 
> twitter: @gaysorcery


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